Well, I underestimated Filler again, picking Tony in this spot, but maybe it's time to ask this question:
Are we watching the emergence of the best player of all time?
No player of the last 40 years has shown this kind of form at the age of 22. Personally, I'm not sure any player has been this committed at 22 to excelling at every discipline in the last forty years, all of which I watched up close.
1) At 9-ball, Filler's already a world champion, has won the US Open 9-ball, has won the China Open 9-ball and has been a Mosconi Cup MVP. Most believe he's the best 9-ball player in the world. He beat Shane 9-2 at Derby City, and beat Shane 5-0 and 5-1 at the Mosconi, so he's won 19 of his last 22 racks against Shane.
2) Both Jay Helfert and Billy lncardona are raving about Filler's one pocket game, suggesting that it will take the most elite couple of players in the discipline to take him down. At this point, I'll defer to them when it comes to one pocket, but given his win in a race to 21 over Chohan, I don't think it's premature to count him among the stars of the discipline.
3) At bank pool, Filler is already gambling and holding his own with some of the biggest stars of the discipline, including both Evan Lunda and Shannon Murphy.
4) Johnny Archer is on record as saying Shane can't beat Filler in a long 10-ball race and I agree. Filler topped JL Chang in 10-ball action at the 2019 DCC, during which no other player, Shane included, was willing to step up to the plate against JL Chang in big action.
5) At straight pool, Filler ran 285 on 4 1/2" pockets at the DCC in 2019. He ran 293 at the age of 17, too.
6) Filler has been European 8-ball champion and was going to play 8-ball specialist Justin Bergman for $20,000 until JB's backers took a lot of the money off the table.
Filler, it seems, will play anyone at any game on a pool table, and has amazing form in every discipline. In my estimation, he already has the credentials for BCA Hall of Fame induction.
I don't think it too far fetched to consider the matter of whether we are watching a historically great player who will, a few years from now, belong in the conversation of the best pool player ever. Yes, there are a lot of Filler haters out there, but I'm guessing even they'll come around.